


heavy is the head

by charleybradburies



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Drabble, Drinking, Drinking to Cope, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Excessive Drinking, F/M, House Stark, Hurt/Comfort, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I Don't Even Know, Identity Reveal, Love, Marriage, One Shot, POV Ned Stark, Parenthood, R Plus L Equals J, Secrets, Short One Shot, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 10:18:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18364046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: A completely AU situation in which Ned actually tells Cat the truth of Jon's birth early in their marriage, because...what if?[I say that while pretty much the whole fic is just their conversation, but really, things would have been different and I'm emotional about it.]





	heavy is the head

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've ever written with Ned's POV so I hope it's ok! Please comment with your thoughts, and thank you for reading! <3

_Promise me, Ned._

He promised, and he intended to keep his promise. He intended to take the truth of Jon to his grave, no matter how harshly the lie stung. 

But just as he failed to save Lyanna, he fails her in this way, too.

It was always Robert who was the drinker. _The drunk, now,_ he thinks, but it feels wrong to think of his king in such a way. Even so, sometimes Ned returns to habits cultivated around his friend, even if he cannot hold his cups for nearly as long. But he’s seen war now, and the only family around him is one he has to make, one he’s already fucked up, one with this lovely wife he’s already betrayed, and particularly on occasions when Catelyn is more thorn than flower he feels the need to rid his head of it all. 

These are the circumstances that find him nearly dragged to his chambers by Ser Rodrik one night, after hiding out in the library until the hour of the wolf, unwilling to entertain. Ned did not feel pride at making Catelyn tend to the castle in his short absence, but knows she does so regardless, even as he expects he’ll see bitterness tomorrow from her as well as his own body. He certainly doesn’t expect her to be there, awake, concerned, when Rodrik deposits him on the bed in the lord’s chamber, the one they don’t quite share at this point. _The one that should be Brandon’s by right._

She asks Ser Rodrik to leave them, setting down her sewing and saying she’ll help her husband ready himself. Ned spends the time she’s switching out his clothes apologizing, but at some point he almost runs out of things to apologize for, and her look is the end of him. The soft, sweet, lovely...even as she was annoyed and did not hide it from him, Ned was gone, as was his sense. 

“I’m sorry for the lies.” The apology tumbles out of his mouth of its own accord. 

“Oh?” Catelyn asks, and he can’t read whether she’s interested or about to be angry and either way he can’t stop himself.

“I’m sorry that you think - that I - that I can’t - it isn’t what I’ve said it is.”

_His sister’s dying wish, and he’s blown it all to Hell because he’s deep in his cups and his wife is pretty._

She doesn’t ask him to clarify, but she steels herself and he knows that she knows he means Jon. 

“There’s not much else to think.”

She’s drained all the emotion from her voice, and yet, not the color from her face. _Gods,_ she was beautiful. He could barely look at her as it was, but a glance was all one needed to know.

He stumbles back a bit, and she helps him to sit on the edge of the bed. Soft, gentle hands. He wishes they’d never have to leave him. 

He mutters Jon’s name, a couple of times, facing the floor and working himself up, for he’d already said too much - and still, too little - and she looks away until he finishes: “Jon is not my son.”

Was it a lie, still? He could not be sure, but it was some part of the truth.

“Jon...Jon is Lyanna’s son.”

He can’t bring himself to look back at her but in the corner of his eye he watches as she takes in what he’s said. A dozen emotions cross her face, most of them too quickly for him to place, in his state.

“Rhaegar’s son,” he adds, though that part comes with bitterness.

“I promised her. I promised her I’d protect him,” he continues, practically whimpering, and Catelyn makes up her mind, standing right in front of him and drawing his head into her chest as he starts to cry. He sobs, really, as though he’d been unaware of the weight of that he had held, alone, through the previous year. 

He was not _truly_ alone, of course. Howland knew, perhaps as much as he did, but Howland was at Greywater Watch, married and with his own child to protect, and no one at Winterfell could know - only Ned, and Lyanna where her bones lay, and if her statue held any secrets it never spoke comfort to him when he needed it. 

_And now Catelyn._

Catelyn, who had not even been meant to be Ned’s, but now is soothing him, her drunken husband, like a child in her arms. She’s crying, too, just silently, he realizes, when he finally raises his head. 

“You’ve kept your promise, Ned,” she tells him softly. “He - Jon is safe here.”


End file.
